Labour has to be an opposition. It must have a substantially different approach to the Conservatives. It must embrace the counter-cyclical investment that is so desperately needed at present in housing, business, sustainable energy and (perhaps most of all) people, who should have a right to debt-free education. In the process it would put finance and big business in its proper place, where it is treated as very significant, but not the real power in the land.

The party also has to say that outside the EU it would have the ability to create a long-term vision for a sustainable future, using (if necessary) the power of the Bank of England to create money to invest for the long term at a time when interest rates are (and are likely to remain) exceptionally low.

And it must say that it welcomes migration if those who come are willing to embrace the UK as their home. Learning English, offering a skill and being willing to work where work is needed can be and should be the conditions of seeking to live in this country. Migration would be a contract, not a right, refugees and asylum status apart. Norway has done this; so should we.

Labour could be committed to jobs, education, investment and controlled migration and be true to itself, but if, and only if, it has a leader who will realise that this is what large numbers of people want from someone with the pragmatic skills of leadership needed to deliver the vision.

Get the person who combines that vision and that leadership now and Labour could win, even this year. Fail to do so and we face a bleak path towards the destruction of the state as we know it. The stakes could not be higher.

That's a tough agenda for a party to embrace, but if Labour is to be the counter power that Paul Mason is calling for without specifying what he means by that in practical terms then this is what I think Labour needs to take on.

32 Responses

“Labour could be committed to jobs, education, investment and controlled migration and be true to itself” Picking up on the education (& by implication – training) the UK both with respect to educational institutions and companies has failed miserably to educate or train technicians & engineers. This is a direct function of a “market orientated” approach which the Tories continue to test to destruction.

Extract from article (GreentechMedia) now follows

“Given infrastructure that U.K. utilities need to build, they’ll need large numbers of skilled construction workers to deliver these assets. That’s not something that you can just teach somebody quickly; the welders, pipefitters, and other tradespeople need to already have experience and specialized skills,” said Ebohon. “U.K. utilities have not been as active in infrastructure deployment, so they probably don’t currently have the internal capability to deliver on construction.”

The current government is doing close to zero to address this. Given its ideology it never will.

There is an unreconciliable split in the Labour party between those who view Labour MPs as delegates of the members, TU affiliated members and supporters and subject to their guidance and direction and those who assert the primacy of representative parliamentary democracy. The sooner these two factions reconstitute themselves as potentially viable political entities the sooner some effective parliamentary opposition may emerge.

There is nothing in that statement that I can disagree with. It is exactly the path that Labour needs to embrace to give itself a purpose to continue to exist. However, that will never happen whilst it is still in the grip of neo-liberal group think.

Corbyn has my support, but he is not a leader. He is the catalyst for change that Labour has desperately needed, but I do not seem him ever leading the party to victory. He seems a genuine, honest and caring individual, who backs his words by voting in the interest of the people he represents, but I feel he is unable to make the really hard decisions that have to be made sometimes. He has also not made a clear plan on how to achieve his ambitions, and it’s this vagueness (and a rather poor PR team I think) that is causing him problems.

Labour also has no credible alternatives. You may be more familiar with these people as individuals, but I can only go on their voting history, and that is the only thing that matters. Too often, they have voted for or abstained on Tory policies that have proven to be draconian or degenerate to Labour supporters. That is NOT opposition. Until we have Labour MPs that actually represent the interests of the people they were voted by, I fear that this battle is going to rage on for a long while.

The wikipedia page on Seamus Milne indicates that he worked as a journalist in the 80s and 90s ( he was on the executive committe of the National Union of Journalists) before switching to being a columnist with responsibilty for the Guardian Comments Section in the noughties.
I read his recent book “The Revenge of History; THe Battle for the Twenty First Century”, a compilation of published opinion pieces on economic and foreign policy. I have to say, that they reveal remarkable clarity, prescience and insight. Perhaps Seamus should step up to the plate and stand for Parliament.
I would certainly be interested in some examples demonstrating lack of understanding of how the media works Richard.

What you say is, of course, 100% correct. But I fear it is already too late to win an election, even one in 2020. That’s only 4 years in which to reframe the economic agenda within the public’s subconscious. It took longer than that for the Neo-liberal ‘school’ to implant their misguided and academically corrupt ideology. It started in the universities and schools, with massive financial support from major corporations. It was brain-washing on an industrial scale which has proved to be hugely successful. Unravelling that is not going to be easy. The tragedy is that the PLP voluntarily embraced this economic theory in 1997 and thereafter.

What they should do for the wellbeing of future generations is aggressively sponsor a re-education programme at all levels of society via every available channel. Having the trades unions on board would greatly assist. There would be little difficulty co-opting the support of the Greens, SNP, et al.

Until the voter can get her/his head around the fact that governments are not households it’s going to be an uphill struggle to get support for a progressive modern fiat-currency monetary policy. Just getting their own members and representatives to understand is still proving an uphill task.

In the meantime they need to maintain a relentless coordinated attack on Tory policy in order, as you say, to put clear light between the two. However, all this requires that they speak with one voice and there’s the rub. It’s the dreaded chicken & egg scenario, isn’t it? It’s no help saying they should have begun such a programme 30 years ago – but it’s the truth. They are where they are because of what they didn’t do back then. Time scales are critical in shifting opinion on such core ideas. My experience is you have to think generationally.

But … never say never. On the basis that oppositions don’t win elections – governments lose them, hopefully there’s plenty of scope for that future scenario. However, from her initial utterances, Theresa May has enough political nouse to understand she has to take a different tack publicly to her immediate predecessors. The good news for Labour is that the Tebbit-inspired hard-right of her party will vehemently oppose any suggestion of softening at the edges let alone redirecting the economy away from their entrenched ideological beliefs. They hold the whip hand because of their implied threat to unite with UKIP who could win over another swathe of new voters at the next election from the ranks of the now well-documented disgruntled Northern Labour ‘Leavers’.

There’s a mountain to climb for any meaningful opposition party / coalition. As you stated, if they don’t get their act together in very short order, it could be another 20 years in the wilderness, which would be a massive dereliction of duty towards the next generation.

That’s some comfort, Marco. Thanks. While 4 years sounds like a long-ish time, the clock is ticking and before you can say Kier Hardy it’ll be 2020, assuming Theresa May doesn’t engineer a GE sooner. If she does then Labour will be caught on the back foot, won’t they? I’m nervous. The thought of another 9 years of Tory gross mismanagement is scary.

I find it interesting that MMT economists (for whom I have great respect) generally supported Brexit on the basis that it will totally liberate the UK to run a progressive, independent economic policy – but they don’t seem to take into account the risk of an even more entrenched Neo-liberal economy if the Conservatives remain in power. Seems like we’re between a rock and a hard place. Anyhow, thanks again for your reassuring information.

I wouldn’t object to any of this. As Mike Parr says education is the key. I have worked in the Education Sector for going on 40 years mainly in Engineering.
There is also an image problem. When I started as admission officer for Electrical Engineering in Leeds Poly in the late 1980’s I used to get well over 1000 applications per year for our various courses, by the time I finished in the mid ’90s applications were down to about 50. Media studies and other softer courses of course had dramatic rises in the number of students. In most countries (including Ireland) Engineers are very highly regarded. In England they seem to be people who repair your washing machine or wipe a lathe down twice daily with an oily rag.

Th UK is undoubtedly world class at the very high end but in terms of training mid-ranking Engineers and Technicians does a very poor job unlike Germany with its Fachhochschule system. I’m not at all sure that the move from Polys to Universities was a good idea. There is no question that the education system needs radial reform.

Regarding people, I live in the NE of England and outside a few areas like shiny Newcastle (which was the only part of the NE to vote to stay in the EU) the rest of the NE and the former mining towns especially have an air of decay, neglect despair and hopelessness. These are the people we need to help most.

I couldn’t agree more about the ill-advised project to “transform” Polytechnics into Universities.

I have a wide experience of being educated in both universities (Oxford, Athens and London) and Polytechnics (PCL and Middlesex), and can affirm that teaching, tuition and lecturing varied from poor through to excellent, irrespective of whether the establishment was a University or a Polytechnic, with a key variable being the surrounding infrastructure, especially library provision.

However, one very KEY differential between the two regimes was that of method and environment.

The Universities were very much dedicated to professional development of knowledge and judgement within a particular subject area, expected to be followed within a set time period.

By contrast, Polytechnics were dedicated rather to the acquisition of skills, often within a multidisciplinary environment, and delivered on a more flexible basis – sandwich and or part-time courses.

For example,I took my LL.B. from PCL (before it became the University if Westminster), by part-time evening classes, over 4 years, taking 3 broad topic areas (Crime, Constitutional etc.) a year.

The two systems operated differently, for different ends, and often to different audiences, and, with REAL “parity of esteem”, could have offered a really overall excellent system, especially if an effective CATS (transfer of credits) and an equally effective Work-based Learning scheme had been integrated into an overall system, to permit REAL Lifelong Learning.

Of course, what ACTUALLY happened is that good old British “fear of trade” snobbery entered the mix, so that Poly’s were looked down on as inferior (despite Universities actually adopting multidisciplinary courses, and Polytechnic style flexibility to some extent), while the Polytechnics, in a fit of inferiority complex, sought to “upgrade” themselves to Universities (something that had already happened, with more justification, to Colleges of Advanced Technology, such as Hwrriot-Watt).

The final deadly extra ingredient in the mix was the Thatcher inspired “commercialisation” of HE & FE, in which excellent educational establishments turned themselves into second rate businesses, resulting in the current wasteland – perhaps that is TOO extreme a term, so let us say instead the current underperforming higher education sector, when with true “parity of esteem”, and real willingness to cooperate and learn from each other, the “dual” system could actually have worked well as a single system dedicated to real education, learning and acquisition of skills.

I have quoted Tacitus’s Agricola before, using the words he puts into the mouth of the British Chieftain Calgacus, and offer no apology for quoting them again, because, fictional though they may be, they are still true.

I fear that the party has to split. And why not? I accepted long ago that I am on my own and it is every person for themselves now. No party speaks for me except the Greens ( a minority where I live) but Corbyn has come close.

Your blog above seems perfectly fitting to me as to what they should do – I approve. But no-one in that party can deliver it in my view. The Right in Labour are married to markets.

Where I am, a lot of people are very angry with Labour for falling out amongst themselves at a key moment in political history. This will resonate for along time.

And as yet I have heard lots of people calling for leadership without defining what it means or what it is they are looking for.

As for May – she may have come to the conclusion that increased Govt’ expenditure is the best medicine for the this divided country’s ills at this time. This may take the heat off her being a Remain advocate.

The Tories have done this before – after Thatcher’s abortive attempt at neo-liberalism in the early 80’s we got regeneration projects galore as they realised that towns and cities needed patching up and the populace needed calming down.

The next big event for me is the departure of a certain chancellor from no. 11. That fellow has to go now.

Corbyn has more membership support and more union support than any other candidate and there are no obvious replacements for him.

One reason for that lies in the membership’s resentment of a certain contingent within the PLP that has openly undermined this leadership and shamelessly disregarded the will of the membership from day one. There are a lot of peripheral JC supporters that are determined not to reward that behaviour or allow it to set the standard.

I’m not saying that most within the PLP fit the white-anter description but there is something distastefully toxic in the idea of handing the nasties a victory. That said some of the PLP’s complaints about Corbyn no doubt have some validity (as you say).

There’s a dilemma. There’s something of a precedent for it the case of Australian Labor’s Kevin Rudd (big popular support but disliked by his own PLP).

The best solution may be procedural – a binding (and inclusive) consultation arrangement that forces communication through meeting and consensus requirements on certain matters.

Australian Labor’s Caucus system has some merits although it puts too much emphasis on the PLP and not the membership. Something similar but even more inclusive may be worth considering.

God knows that UK Labour, its leader and its PLP need to find some humility and an arrangement that can reconcile these differences. Grandstanding, bickering and posturing will never suffice.

Whether it is Corbyn or the PLP – I just cannot believe the behaviour I’m seeing.

I was listening to Talking Head’s ‘Naked’ album in the car to work this morning and heard the track ‘The facts of Life’ a part of which seemed rather apt concerning Labour:

“Someday we’ll live on Venus, men will walk on Mars
But we will still be monkeys down deep inside
If chimpanzees are smart then we will close our eyes
And let our instincts guide us, oh oh oh oh ohhhhhhhh no”

Oh well…………

For me it’s back to basics as far as the Left are concerned – first principals around justice (as Prof. Murphy has pointed out) and reboot from there.

But also there is this lingering worry that politicians did not win the EU vote or appoint the new Prime Minister : the media did – principally the Daily Mail, Express Sun and others. Their power seems unassailable.

Even worse-we now have the ‘pleasure’ of watching Labour’s demise whilst listening to more vile condescension and offering of crumbs from the neo-liberal by May whilst Johnson mouth-farts ultra-transient garbage all over the place.

Yes, there’s definitely something chimp-like in the posturing and bickering that we’ve seen.

Looking at emerging trends though, I have some doubts about your take on the ‘unassailable’ media. Consider this question: Why did the papers that you mentioned back Brexit and then annoint a Remain campaigner as PM?

I’m entertaining a theory that would suggest that both they, and the Boris Johnson types, never really wanted it. If anything they wanted retain the EU as an endless source of complaint and division. Cameron’s referendum was an attempt to flush them out. All things considered the result has backfired on most everyone concerned.

Having “won” the vote, the papers that you refer to have gone for damage control and huddled behind a ‘unity’ candidate that never backed Brexit to begin with. And I’m not so sure that they ‘appointed’ her as you say. Once Gove had eliminated Johnson (too funny) May was the only viable choice.

More generally, it would also appear that the influence of newspapers, especially tabloids, is in decline as is their circulation. This is partly due to due to technogical change and their aging core readership. Its harder to see that in Britain because the UK is among the last to experience this change. Compare, for example your observation about them with them winning the EU vote and ‘appointing’ the PM with the fact that they didn’t appoint the Opposition leader, they didn’t back Trump or Bernie Sanders or, in many cases, 2nd term Obama.
In Australia, the Murdoch media’s over-the-top support for their preferred PM, Tony Abbott, saw him get kicked out in first term after losing 36 polls in a row. In the years between now and 2009 their Australian influence has fallen off dramatically.

In purely electoral terms, the Daily Mail is the most impotent paper in Britain because they don’t do deals and they don’t change sides. They always back the same Tory horse so they’re basically preaching to the converted. The Brexit was something of a rare exception because the issue didn’t split along Party lines.

‘’m entertaining a theory that would suggest that both they, and the Boris Johnson types, never really wanted it. If anything they wanted retain the EU as an endless source of complaint and division. ‘

Its a ghastly mess I’m afraid. I have little confidence that things are going to be easily resolved, and fear that the party may slide into insignificance unless it pulls itself together pretty sharpish.

The frustrating thing is that there is a real opportunity for a competently led, united, left of centre social democratic party to make real gains. One that is committed to social justice, greater equality, improved public services, fair taxation and constitutional reform. Its awful to see a party that should be putting genuine pressure on the Tories fail so miserably to perform its basic task.

The contrast with the Tories couldn’t be starker. They’ve just come through a divisive referendum, but have shelved differences without any obvious acrimony and got on with the job. We may dismiss, deride and detest them but they appreciate that holding power is what really matters.

In recent months there has been a marked increase in reports of intimidation and threatening behaviour taking place at party meetings. Whilst the NEC recognises that the majority of our members hold vigorous yet collegiate meetings, the NEC has a duty of care for individuals who feel that their safety is threatened. It was therefore saddened to have to take the decision to suspend all normal party meetings at CLP and branch level until the completion of the leadership election.